David Williams Receipt for Beef

Received of John Logan eight dollars seventy nine & one fourth cents in full of all the beef he has had from the butchers October 29th 1831

GW Logan David Williams

This is the first document in this series of John Logan Digital Archive posts where my wife’s GG Grandfather George W. Logan was part of a document. This just might be the oldest surviving document that was signed by the former judge who took on the KKK during North Carolina’s reconstruction period. He was just 16 years old when he witnessed this document for his father at the butcher. In my last blog post, I featured a document signed by George W. Logan when he was 53 years old. He had a much more ornate signature as a teenager.

One has to wonder how much beef could be bought for the sum of $8.79 back in 1839. Today it could buy you a 1.75lb pack of hamburger meat. I imagine this may have been for as much as an entire cow’s worth of beef on his account. A couple of different historical dollar value calculators suggests that $8.79 is equivalent to $250 to $400 in today’s money.

It could be presumed that David Williams is the butcher, cattle rancher or shop proprietor. There were two different David Williams in Rutherford County, NC at the time of the 1830 census.

David Williams #1

Home in 1830 (City, County, State):

Rutherford, North Carolina

Free White Persons – Males – Under 5:

1

Free White Persons – Males – 5 thru 9:

1

Free White Persons – Males – 20 thru 29:

1

Free White Persons – Females – Under 5:

1

Free White Persons – Females – 15 thru 19:

1

Free White Persons – Under 20:

4

Free White Persons – 20 thru 49:

1

Total Free White Persons:

5

Total – All Persons (Free White, Slaves, Free Colored):

5

David Williams #2

Name:

DavidWilliams

Home in 1830 (City, County, State):

Rutherford, North Carolina

Free White Persons – Males – 20 thru 29:

1

Free White Persons – Females – 15 thru 19:

1

Free White Persons – Under 20:

1

Free White Persons – 20 thru 49:

1

Total Free White Persons:

2

Total – All Persons (Free White, Slaves, Free Colored):

2

I found a land grant for a David Williams in Rutherford County from 1829, but beyond these few documents, there is very little by David Williams. It looks as though they left the area during the 1830s.

If you can find any additional information about David Williams, please share in the comments below.

About the Logan Project: I possess a box of 170 documents passed down 6 generations in the Logan family that originate from John Logan (1775-1841) of Rutherford County, NC. These documents are mainly receipts that show the various business and legal dealings of many different families from Rutherford County, NC. I will be posting these documents on this blog in chronological order. The scanned images of these documents are the copyright of Jonathan Medford. You are welcome to download them for personal use. Do not redistribute these documents for the purpose of commercial gain without his expressed written permission. If you would like to start reading them from the first document, you can start here.